No, it’s not just about the government not putting pressure on the media. Laissez-faire attitudes do not protect press freedom. Indigenous communities still need equitable press representation even if they cannot afford it or do not have access to the necessary resources or education, capitalism will not magically provide it. It must be actively supported. Press freedom and representation are responsibilities the government is expected to ensure, not to simply take its hands off and hope it happens. From your comment I have to assume you are the kind of person who would assume state-run media is automatically bad, when in fact state-run media like the CBC is actually one effective way of promoting and accomplishing that goal, but there are other approaches too.

No matter how you choose to do it, press freedom must be actively and intentionally distributed equally to all, like voting is. We do not say a country has democracy by having a show of hands of whoever happens to be around when the government decides to have an election. There’s actual work that has to go into it, processes and systems need to be established, developed and protected, it will be expensive to do and there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, it is a dynamic environment and difficult problem to solve. And the actual details of how you do it will be judged by people like the democracy index. The same goes for press freedom, and the press freedom index is in the same position to judge exactly how we do at it. They are judging us because we deserve to be judged for the things we are doing (and more importantly aren’t doing) to preserve press freedom. I value their criticism and I hope we strive to do better.

Mark Carney’s commitment to re-fund the CBC and increase its mandate to provide more local coverage is a step in the right direction, but as the index shows, we still have a ways to go and the government is an integral part of making the necessary changes.